Our Tour De France Part One - Week One Across the channel in Elise the VW Camper.

Birthday breakfasts (All plant based)

It was an early Monday morning in July 2020, we'd been staying down with our eldest son, daughter-in-law and their three children, out grandchildren, two boys and a girl for just over a week at their home just outside of Bradford upon Avon. It had been a good week, no it had been a great week, not only had the sun shone which meant that as we were based out of Elsie, Elsie we remind you is our newly purchased VW T5 campervan who you'll hear much more about during the next few blog posts, sleeping in her during the night but with the good weather able to interact with the family during the day. 

Family time

The week down there had also enabled us to meet up with our youngest son who was on leave from the super yacht where he works and after some sad goodbyes to him towards the end of the week we welcomed our middle son who was able to join us, with with his wife who was heavily pregnant with our fourth grandchild, as it turns out a beautiful baby girl called Winnie who was born a couple of days ago at the beginning of September 2020, for his birthday celebrations, a tad early, but we all made a fuss of him as he celebrated his 31st birthday.

Ready for the channel crossing to France

Back to this early Monday morning, we woke before the birds, which in England during the summer is pretty early, and made our way down to Portsmouth to catch the ferry which would cross the English Channel and deposit us in French soil in Caen around six hours later. Elsie made her way confidently onto the deck and enjoyed a smooth crossing with her friends, other campers, motor homes, lorries and cars, and due to the Covid-19 conditions we had to book a cabin so spent most of the time there catching up on some much needed beauty sleep with the expectation of a busy day ahead.

Covid-19 style channel crossing

As you know we drive on the left hand side of the road in England, the correct side, with our steering wheel on the right, in France they drive on the wrong side of the road and therefore seeing as we were driving a German made VW campervan built for English road conditions the first trick that myself and Elsie needed to learn, no ensure, was that I kept to that wrong side thus negating the opportunity of other road users either hitting us/me or me hitting them! Once I'd mastered this the next challenge was to find the right road out of the port and with google-maps open we made our way confidently yet tentatively out onto the tarmac and into another world, OK France.

D-Day landing memorial in Normandy

Before we go any further I neglected to say that in the planning of this trip I had studied many different websites seeking advice about many things, the best places in France to visit, what not to miss, best camping sites, free parking (both for day and overnight stays) beaches, restaurants (OK I didn't research those as this was to be a trip on a tight budget and French restaurants were going to be well out of our price range), within all this searching I stumbled over a web based community called France Passion, started some 28 years ago it has established a network of over 2000, mainly organic, farms who in return for hosting a few campervans/motorhomes, or camping cars as they are known in France, have a captive audience who are all too willing to come taste the delights that they have been busy creating and producing over the year. 

Elsie all set up for our first night at a France Passion site

More often than not these little farms seemed to be the ones that grow grapes and are commonly known as vineyards or vignes as we have subsequently found out the French call them after visiting quite a few during this trip, who produce some amazing local and internationally recognised wines. There is no obligation to purchase anything but more often than not who wouldn't want to buy some fresh produce from the very farmer who grew it around the fields where you would be spending the night?

We duly signed up and received our membership cards, log on details for the website and a handy book that was to become our bible for the next seven weeks. These France Passion sites were a godsend and it was towards one of these in northern Normandy that we were headed, headed that is after we had made a visit to the D-Day landing beaches, those beaches upon which my great uncles regiment had landed in June 1944 and on which we now found half of France as unbeknownst to us this middle of July Monday was a public holiday, well it actually wasn't but the next day, 14th July was Bastille day and those clever French families had cunningly booked off the Monday to add onto their weekend, also called weekend by the French by the way!, creating a perfect four day break just as we arrived. 

The beaches, long and flat as they are, were crowded, as were all the little coastal roads which was fun as we sought to gentle break ourselves into this driving on this wrong side of the road lark, however we managed to park, walk and view a couple of memorials and as we traveled further down the coast saw the very beach, Gold Beach, upon which my great uncles regiment had landed as they pushed through France he in his Tank, he was the driver, through Belgium, Holland and eventually across the Rhine as the Allies defeated Hitler and his Nazis in the second world war.

I hope you've got a nice cuppa to keep you company because as you can see this could be a long post as we seek to share the first week of our 'Tour De France', so if you are sitting comfortably I'll continue.

After heading west along the coast we cut inland, down country lanes towards Vaux-sur-Aure and a farm that grew apples and other fruits, mainly using those apples to make the local alcoholic beverage called Calvados, a cider brandy produced in a similar way to Cognac and Armagnac which we were to taste as we ventured further south into the grape growing regions of France. Unfortunately we didn't meet the owner but were shown to our 'parking spot' in the middle of these beautiful apple orchards that reminded us so much of those we knew in Grabouw, South Africa, where we'd spent seven years of our lives, but that's another story which many of you will already know about.

This was to be our first real night camping in Elsie, we'd slept in her at our friends field in Essex, our eldest sons home in Bradford on Avon and even outside of our middle sons home in London, right next to a skip which was interesting, however tonight we could test out all the essential items that we had bought to make our time in Elsie a little more comfortable. First item to come out was the porta potti, I won't go into too much detail but this was to be a true blessing when camping at places without access to a W/C, this was housed in a 'pop up' tent which literally popped up in less than 10 seconds, 'popping' it down proved to be a little more tricky but with the help of YouTube, accessed via 4g on our phones, we eventually worked out a quick way to do that and all was well (but we are racing ahead, we didn't need to worry about that until packing away in the morning!). The next niffy piece of kit was a rear awning, this 'tent' literally sat over the back of the open tail gate and with a few pegs to hold it down formed a great private space for us to dress and keep bits an pieces that we didn't need in the van at night. With the last accessory installed, this a simple side canopy which located in a track running along the side of the van we were set, gas on, kettle full and a welcome cup of Rooibos tea we were set.

The farm was huge, not only the land but the house too, we went to find out where the nearest toilets were, yes we had the porta potti all set up but why use/fill that when there is a free one to use, where we could fill up with water and also to see if we could taste the wares which we had read about in the hand book. A lovely young lady explained in broken English, us understanding her with our broken French, about the farm, Calvados and the ciders that they produce. The Calvados was lovely, quite hot and fiery, but was slightly out of our price range, we had you see set out to purchase at least one item, I mean who could buy just one tomato or potato if they were on offer, from each of the France Passion places we stayed at and being the first night opted for the slightly cheaper but no less tasty cider (we actually bought three bottles, one to enjoy with that evenings meal, one that we drank long the way and the last which we will open to wet dear our dear daughters head when she arrives).

We were joined by a few other motor homes during the evening but such was the space afforded to us we didn't even hear let alone see them once we had all settled down for the night. Elsie has three sleeping spaces, the rear awning, which we did use later in the trip, a bed towards the back of the van which is made up of the rear seats folding down into a double bed and our favorite a bed in the 'pop up roof' which is also a double and although a little challenging to climb into affords an open feel with canvas sides, windows and vents to three of the four sides and it was up there that we stopped for this first night and many others to come.

Shower time

Another accessory that we had purchased before the trip was a 12 volt shower, powered yes you've guessed it from the 12 volt cigarette lighter, of which Elsie has a few, either run off of the standard battery or the leisure battery which can be topped up by either running the engine, basically as you drive along, very handy, or via a solar panel which we had also bought prior to the trip which provides a trickle charge to keep that battery in tip top condition too! Anyway back to this shower, well I had also created a 'shower screen', made out of white tubing bought from Screw-fit and a shower curtain, plus we had bought a solar shower bag, this is basically a 20 liter black bag which you fill with cold water then position in the sun and with miracle that takes place where the direct sunlight warms the water which you can then add to the collapsible shower bucket, sink the shower pump into the bucket (which is now hopefully full of warmish water), press the button and stand under a warm(ish) shower for around 5 minutes, 2 and a half minutes each if sharing with another, I was, Maz, who you'd probably have guessed had also joined me and Elsie on this tour, or less time if you are sharing it with more people, dogs or other things that need to be showered down each day!

The weather was slightly overcast when we woke but we were keen to get out for our daily run, the evening before we had ventured out around the farm and found a little 'green way' (again something we would find again and again as we traveled further) that after checking on the map showed a circular route back to the farm, I ran twice round making a nice 10km run our first in France for a while and Maz completed one lap at as you've deduced 5kms, got back and although the water wasn't too warm from the solar bag we topped it up with hot water heated on the gas ring and had a lovely shower in the apple orchards of Normandy, a successful first day and first night.

After breakfast we packed, an exercise that we would repeat and become very adept at over the next few weeks but this first one took a little time before we made a 200km journey to our second and as it turns out third night stop at a friends holiday home just south of Saint Malo. 

Seeing as though we were so close to Bayeux we were keen to see if we could visit the famous tapestry depicting the last invasion of England, by anyone, in 1066 when William Duke of Normandy defeated King Harold at Hastings. Unfortunately the museum hosting the tapestry was only taking a very few visitors and waiting around for another three hours for the next batch of tickets to be released didn't agree with our days plan so after a quick coffee, black of course, we made our way to the place we had earmarked for lunch the mightily impressive Mont Saint-Michel which stood majestically out in the channel like a castle from a disney movie, except this was a real castle.

We arrived at our friends home in Plorec late in the afternoon, we'd been to their home on a number of occasions but they had completed quite a lot of work since we were last there and it was good to see how the house is being transformed. We had the run of the place, including the option to sleep in the house, our first 'real bed' since we stopped with my sister just after we'd returned from Zambia in March, it was too tempting so we said our good-nights to Elsie, reassuring her that we'd see her in the morning and went to sleep in a real bed in a real house.

Running the green-ways

Its been my desire to run 2020 kilometers in the year 2020 so my daily runs have not only become a habit but they have enabled me to get out in the fresh air in some beautiful places including those in South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe so I was keen to continue that in France so I went out for a run whilst Maz did a work out in the orchard of the house where we stayed. 

Another thing we wanted to do whilst we were in France was to visit as many local markets as possible, however we only just made it to the nearest one that was taking place in Marignon as with all markets we ended up visiting it finished at midday. We made it with around an hour to spare and we made sure we bought some fresh veg, olives, tapenade and pickled garlic which we enjoyed for lunch for the rest of the week and beyond.

French markets are so interesting, firstly it seems like the whole of the surrounding area descends on them, so much so that roads are closed, a good thing, and cars end up being parked all over the place making it hard for late comers, like us, to find a suitable place to park without blocking drives, doors or roads, a bad thing. The fayre is normally quite similar, fresh fruit and veg, a stalls selling local wines, beers or cider, dried meats, always a few stalls displaying a wide range of cheeses and fresh meats, huge pans full of paella (fish and or meat dishes) or other sizzling pots full of hot food, rarely a burger or kebab van, thankfully, often stalls peddling products produced in Africa, often West Africa but we have met up with some very nice Malagasy who have their traditional straw bags and hats and yes the clothing stalls, handmade jewelry, a hat seller, some guy demonstrating the next household cleaning product or kitchen saving device but most of all full of happy people out for a morning in their local town browsing, buying, chatting and basically enjoying themselves. 

We spent the afternoon in the orchard reading and planning our next days route and stopover, then after another lovely meal, this time prepared and cooked by Maz in a real kitchen with a real cooker, we made our way to bed with only the crazy church bells to keep us company, they seemed to ring at random picking their own tune, and or not a tune, without much thought of what it might sound like to those sleeping not 50 meters from the bell tower i.e us!

Elsie was ready, waiting and raring to go, we had another 200+ kilometer journey ahead of us, which seems like quite a way to go, missing out on some great towns, villages, sights and sounds but we were really keen to get down to the Loire valley and experience some of the places that we'd been looking forward to visiting via the France Passion book. That said we made sure not to miss the castle seated above the Loire in the city of Angers and after having lunch there overlooking the river in the hot sunshine we made our way to a small vineyard called Domaine de Tartifume. 

A night in the vineyards

I'm not sure what we were expecting from our first stop at a French vineyard, as you'll know we spent over seven years South Africa, many of the farms around Grabouw and Elgin were vineyards plus if they weren't right on our doorstep it was only a hop step and a jump to go to the more touristic regions around Stellenbosch and Franschhoek, still whilst many of these weren't the huge Spier, Boschendal or Beyerskloof estates most of them were all a lot bigger than this tiny little vineyard we'd just turned up on.

We made an effort to contact the owner but with no reply so left a message on his answering machine we decided to follow the 'France Passion' signs up through an old farmyard to a beautiful location set up above the wine cellar, under a tree and overlooking the valley below and vines behind. After a few minutes we saw the huge sliding doors to a big barn open and out walked an older man who we expected to be Benoit who we'd left and answerphone message with just a few minutes before, instead it turned out to be his father, it seemed that Benoit was away on holiday and dad was overseeing the operation, including directing the France Passion motor homes to their place, (he failed at that one and we were the only one there!) and completing the wine tasting that we had been looking forward to since the early stages of planning the trip.

Simple display of wines at the cellar

After setting up Elsie for the night and having a nice cuppa we were due down at the cellar to enjoy our first wine tasting in France, France the world renowned "home of wines", we couldn't wait. Well the wine tasting was, um how should we put this, interesting, we had agreed a time with Benoit's dad for a tasting, arriving bang on time, he wasn't anywhere to be seen, then after a few minutes he appeared from his home, next door to his sons home, opened up the 'tasting room' and at a tiny bar opened the fridge and asked us what we'd like to taste, Rouge (Red), Rose with an accent which my keyboard doesn't have (Rose) or Blanc (White), "everything we" said and he duly obliged. Now we must state that he didn't speak any English and our French is pretty much none existent so questions like, 'what type of grape?', or 'how many hectares of vines do you have?' (24 hectares actually, I just looked it up on the internet), and the normal exclamations of 'oh I detect slight floral tones on the nose' or 'this is definitely a heavily wooded red that must have been in French oak barrels for around 18-24 months' were irrelevant, but what was to be commended was the quality of the wine, the fact that we were joined by his friends, perhaps some other French visitors, the dog and the welcome we received.

A morning run towards the woods,
can you spot Maz?

After a very very peaceful night sleeping 'in the pop up' with the window sides down but mosquito screens up we were keen to get out to explore the surrounding vineyards on foot at around 4 minutes 45 seconds per kilometer pace, or at least I was, Maz was quite happy snuggled up in our four season sleeping bag, complete with reversible top and bottom for summer and winter, but after a minute or so she was jumping out of bed, OK maybe not jumping should we say slowly sliding from the top bed onto the head rest of my drivers seat then onto the seat before stumbling bleary eye'd onto the floor fumbling around in her bag for her running kit (mine was easily accessible in one of the handy cupboards ready to don at any time)......it was a beautiful morning and we couldn't waste a second it was at least 6.15am!

Another night in the vines

The run was stunning we ran through the vines onto a nearby road, up the hill turning right towards the woods, where we had actually walked the afternoon before reccying out this possible run, and then right back again to complete the loop, I was therefore surprised that I hadn't passed Maz on my third loop but had seen her go on further into the vines and therefore was wondering the whole way around the next lap where the heck she might turn up!....navigation isn't Maz' strong point and there's a story we won't go into here when we were in Bujumbura, the capital city of Burundi, where Maz got lost on a 600 meter loop around a square blocked neighborhood...what Maz is great at though is cooking, loving people and making sure everyone is OK, I'm great at navigation, lets leave it at that!

After filling up the collapsible bucket from the tap which was located by the wine cellar, remember down hill and through the old farmyard, I bought it back ready to add the water we had been warming on the Gas stove, Elsie is equipped with two separate gas rings. I'd just put it down and had setting up the shower but when I returned ready to pour in the warmish water the collapsible bucket had actually collapsed all by itself leaving the 20 liters of water all over the floor and me needed to make the return journey down hill and through the old farmyard yet again! Oh the joys of campervannning but no one else was around, the sun was shinning, we didn't have far to travel to our next stop and hey we were alive and kicking what more could one want.

Showered, fed and watered we were ready to make a short journey westwards along the Loire to our next stop, another vineyard, but such were the temptations along this pretty drive to pop into others along the way we couldn't resist and after passing through Juigne-sur-Loire we saw signs to Domaine de Gagnebert in a place called Moron, not the most enticing of town names!, and enjoyed a tasting again at this small vineyard. Onward and westwards we drove, glimpsing the wide and shallow Loire through the stunning countryside with pretty towns dotted along its banks.

Just returning from a morning run.

We arrived at our next stop, which was equally if not better located than the last, a lovely little vineyard called Les Vignes de I'Alma owned by the Chevalier (Knight in English) family, now we are closely related to a couple of Knight families, both mine and Maz' sisters marrying a Mr Knight, not the same one I'm glad to say, and not even related, only by us which is strange. 

The parking/camping area was wonderful, a beech hedge providing privacy with a few Plane trees providing some much needed shade, all set in the vineyards where they produce some very traditional white Loire wines of the Anjou region, thus dominated by Sauvignon and or Chenin Blanc grapes. 

After enjoying another tasting, find out where the toilets and water filling point were we had a gentle stroll around the vines only to return to be greeted with another motorhome parking up in our little secluded area, now we knew that this site/stop advertised four spaces for campervans but after last nights lonely stay up on the hill in Coutures we were surprised to see anyone. The couple in the van were lovely hailing from Brittany and who were returning home after spending time travelling around France much like we were doing, they were quiet and so were we and after another delicious meal prepared by Maz on our two ring burner, how does she do it?, we popped up the top and climbed into bed opened the side windows and were greeted by dark skies dotted with tiny twinkling lights, eventually we worked out that these were huge banks of wind turbines and throughout the night as I woke I was fascinated to see them flashing away on top of the far off hills around us.

When stopping on a vineyard in France, why not!

Again we woke early so I decided to run into the nearest village to see if I could pick up some fresh French baguette or croissants, either I was too early or they were very lazy but the store wasn't open so after running back we had to make do with our standard breakfast. Now you may be aware that we try to maintain a wholefoods plant based diet, where possible wherever we are in the world, easy in England, harder to do in Korea or Africa but not too bad here in France where we had found, abet with a little difficult the base of the meal (yes breakfast is a meal and possibly the most important one of the day as what you eat for breakfast will sustain you well on into the afternoon) oats, with those oats we add a great number of berries, including goji, blueberries, cranberry and sultanas (which I know aren't berries), lots of seeds including ground flax, hemp, sunflower (more about those stunning and beautiful plants later on in the trip), pumpkin and chia, nuts including walnuts and activated almonds, as well as prunes, banana and peanut butter all topped off with some dairy free milk and a shot of B12, yummy scummy, healthy, nutritional, wholesome and not a gluten filled wheat based stodgy baguette in sight, why did I run into the village again?

We loved the quietness of this site so much that we asked the manager of the place, he lived off site so we really were the only ones there (other than the other van), if we could stay another night, of course he replied, which was great so I popped into the tiny cellar to procure another bottle or two of their finest (but very reasonably priced) white wine to sustain us for that evening, which was even more peaceful than the night before as the French couple had moved on and left the whole place to us, paradise!

Beach day

Who would have imagined that by the next afternoon we'd be swimming in the Atlantic ocean, sitting on the beach, enjoying a beer at the beach bar, looking forward to a couple of days rest, oh this travelling around putting up and packing away lark is quite tiring you know, and spending time in the beach city of La Rochelle, OK well yes I did because I'd planned the trip but I bet you hadn't guessed that's where we were headed...not only that I had booked us into an AirBnB for us to catch up on some WiFi and laundry time.

Maz on a morning run near La Rochelle

Prior to the afternoon on the beach we'd travelled slightly south west for around three hours and arrived just south of La Rochelle in a tiny beach town called Aytre. After being greeted by our host in his house which was entered at street level but then had an outside terrace down to a lower floor and courtyard garden where we enjoyed breakfasts the following morning, this time we were opposite a stunning little boulangerie where I did pop over to pick up a vast array of goodies, we were on holiday don't you know! , we walked to the beach, through a slightly dodgy area surrounded by boarded up flats. Once at the beach we were greeted with a sight of people enjoying themselves in the sea or just sunning themselves on the rocks or sand. Sand isn't my favorite kind of beach, I mean I love sandy beaches they look stunning but should there be the tinniest gust of wind or wettest bit of skin (after getting out of the same said sea) then woe betide you if the dammed stuff doesn't want to stick to you skin, get into your hair and clothes and become best friends with you joining you as you travel home with and then follow you around for the next few days turning up in some unexpected places.

Three towers overseeing the port of La Rochelle

Maz had visited La Rochelle as a teenager and really enjoyed that French seaside town feel, this was my first time there so after we'd had a quick run, OK I ran for around 14kms down to the beach and along a prom, Maz did a respectable 8km, and after we'd stodged up on french pastries for breakfast, as mentioned before, we caught the local bus, conveniently positioned outside our AirBnB, and went into the port area which has been tastefully revamped, no doubt with EU money, with bars and restaurants all set out in a pedestrianised area around the huge old harbour (Vieux Port). A harbour that has to be said is dominated by the three medieval towers, (The Chain Tower, the Lantern Tower and Saint Nicolas Tower) we didn't take the time to go into the towers but did take a leisurely stroll to the new marina before enjoying a quick Belgium beer or two at one of the port side bars, spent an hour or so people watching and then wandered around the old town arriving back to a pizzeria that we'd spotted earlier for a lunch of you've guessed it, pizza, so traditionally French I know!

No Maz no!

What does one do on a hot and sunny afternoon after a couple of beers and a very white breakfast and lunch, yup you've guessed it again, we went to find the nearest beach, not an easy exercise but one that we achieved, and slept on the beach. After an hour or so Maz took to the water for a swim, which looked lovely and seeing as though the wind wasn't blowing but that we were sitting on a sandy beach I did venture in for a dip too with the knowledge that the hot sun would dry out my now browning skin before the sand could jump all over me and return home (to our AirBnB) on the bus with me.

We'd really really enjoyed our first full week in France, England seemed miles away and with still six or seven weeks left of our Tour De France we went to bed happy with the knowledge that we'd connected with our family back home or in Croatia and were looking forward to what the next seven days might bring.